Los Angeles. The butt of many jokes. The subject of “What a strange and inferior place, ha ha” New York Times articles. A city that’s not really just one city, but a conglomeration of neighborhoods and other independent-but-basically-part-of-Los-Angeles cities. A place with oxygen molecules that refract light in such a unique way that the film industry was born here. A pulse center of United States architecture and visual art.

It’s always hard to come out with city-specific (or date-specific, or clique-specific) products because one never knows if they’ll have enough draw for the manufacturing minimum quantity they’ll require. Of course, there are companies that specialize in airport tchotchkes, but that’s not what most of us want to be. I love these glasses by Sisters of Los Angeles (only one of a few L.A. series they’ve done, including “Canyons” and “Hollywood”) precisely because they’re not tourist bric-a-brac. Instead, they capture the place loved by the people who live there. They also make me think about creating things for narrower audiences—sometimes creativity for broad appeal can be limiting!